Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

It's time to grab hold of the next massive smartphone/tablet hybrid experience from Samsung, this time in the form of the phonecall-capable Galaxy Note 8.0 releasing in the UK today. This device will be available around the world soon and very soon, but for now we're working with the basic wi-fi edition in the greater United Kingdom. This version of the device does not have the ability to connect to mobile data, therefor rendering its phone call abilities as limited to your 3rd party apps - but yes, you can speak into it however you like.

As Samsung gains a whirlwind of attention this week before its big Samsung Galaxy S4 event on the 14th, (one week from today), both the S4 and the Note III have been given some rather impressive unofficial specification sets. The details we're about to compare are not official and have not been confirmed by Samsung in any way. On the other hand, you can count on most or all of them due to the relatively predictable incremental steps every technology company takes when releasing products in a highly popular brand line.

It's not just the Galaxy S4 that's getting attention this week from the tip and leak gods, it's the Samsung Galaxy Note III as well. This week we're to understand that the next-generation Galaxy Note handset will be sporting a 5.9-inch OLED display complete with another next-generation S-Pen ready for futuristic on-screen writing action. This device will also be pushing the Exynos OCTA processor revealed earlier this year during CES 2013.

Samsung plans on doubling its tablet sales this year according to Y.H.Lee, executive VP for Samsung's mobile division. While Samsung hasn't fully disclosed how many tablet sales it made in the year of 2012, the estimated number of sales it has to make in 2013 would equal about 40 million units. Considering Samsung's reputation and power in the mobile industry, it may be able to reach those intended figures.

Samsung wasn't too keen on us benchmarking the Galaxy Note 8.0 back when it was announced on Sunday, but we couldn't resist stopping by here at Mobile World Congress to run some preliminary tests on the 8-inch Android tablet. The pen-enabled digital notepad runs a 1.6GHz quadcore A9 processor with 2GB of RAM, and so we had high hopes for Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Sure enough, the iPad mini rival put in a decent showing.

With the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, you've got another dare to guess from the manufacturer - is it a tablet, or is it a smartphone? In this case you'll not be able to tell based simply on the device's ability (or inability) to make phone call as, yes, you can indeed do so with the 3G international release. Inside the United States we're not quite going to be so lucky to have such an oddity on our hands as an 8-inch display-toting smartphone, at least not at first: we'll have to settle for the strict tablet iteration.